He stroked her hair.
"All right. Don't do it again, that's all."
"I won't—if you'll only tell me one thing. Were you ever engaged to anybody but me?"
"No; I was never engaged to anybody but you."
"Then you were never in love with ten gentlemen at once like the Countess Pol—"
His answer was cut short by the entrance of Sir Peter Morley, followed by Captain Stanistreet.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST STONE
Tyson was much flattered by the rumor that Sir Peter Morley had pronounced his wife to be "the loveliest woman in Leicestershire"; for Lady Morley herself was a sufficiently splendid type, with her austere Puritan beauty. As for the rector, it was considered that his admiration of Mrs. Nevill Tyson somewhat stultified his utterances in the pulpit.